Cherry trees have historical significance

Thursday

Apr 15, 2010 at 2:00 AM

PORTSMOUTH — Helen "Nellie" Taft, President William Taft's wife, was instrumental in the Potomac Basin planting of the cherry trees now celebrated in Washington, D.C.'s annual Cherry Blossom Festival. The Portsmouth Peace Treaty is why Portsmouth has its own collection of trees near City Hall — now in bloom.

Stephanie Seacord

PORTSMOUTH — Helen "Nellie" Taft, President William Taft's wife, was instrumental in the Potomac Basin planting of the cherry trees now celebrated in Washington, D.C.'s annual Cherry Blossom Festival. The Portsmouth Peace Treaty is why Portsmouth has its own collection of trees near City Hall — now in bloom.

Several factors coalesced in realizing the plan. First, Nellie Taft had appreciated the flowering trees planted around the Lunera, a riverside park overlooking Manila Bay, to which she became accustomed while her husband was stationed as governor of the Philippines. Second, the Army Corps of Engineers had begun work in 1902 on the Burnham Plan to improve the Potomac Basin. As secretary of war in 1904, William Taft took a personal interest in these plans and an active interest after his inauguration in March 1909. Third, Eliza Scidmore, of the board of the National Geographic Society, had fallen in love with Japan's cherry blossom ("no other flower in all the world is so beloved, so worshipped, so exalted," she once wrote) on her first trip to Japan and began petitioning the government to plant cherry trees in the nation's capital on her return to the United States in 1895. In 1909, in Nellie Taft, she found a sympathetic ear.

The original plan was to have American nurseries supply the plants — a plan that was to be directed by David Fairchild, an official plant explorer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a particular fan of Japanese cherry trees (and friend of Scidmore) himself. He and his wife had planted a cherry tree path — sakura-michi — at their home "In the Woods" in Maryland to see how different strains would adapt to the climate. Based on their success, the Fairchilds advocated for planting cherry trees around the Washington area and had donated 150 trees that were planted in the school yards of every public school in the Washington, D.C., district. The Fairchilds were going to launch the Potomac plantings with the donation of 50 cherry trees themselves.

When Nellie Taft suffered a stroke that impaired the project, Eliza Scidmore returned to Japan. Under the guidance of Fairchild and with the intercession of a mutual friend, the Japanese-born Dr. Jokichi Takamine, she directed efforts to realize the dream.

On Aug. 30, 1909, an official letter from Japan notified the U.S. Department of State that the city of Tokyo intended to donate cherry trees to the United States, "the news that the planting of Japanese cherry trees along the Potomac Drive of the city of Washington is being contemplated, having reached Japan, the city of Tokyo, prompted by a desire to show its friendly sentiments to its sister Capital City has decided to offer as a gift two thousand young trees raised in Japan." According to Ann McClellan, author of the book "Cherry Blossom Festival," who quoted the official letter above, "The gift also had national overtones expressing Japan's gratitude for America's role in negotiating the peace treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, signed at a conference hosted by President Theodore Roosevelt in Portsmouth, N.H. in 1905."

The first shipment of trees arrived in Washington in January 1910. On March 27, 1912, after several false starts due to disease and climate difficulties with the first shipments of trees, first lady Nellie Taft and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac River Tidal Basin. Those two original trees remain today, just a few hundred yards west of the John Paul Jones Memorial.

The location is the start of the rest of the coincidences that lead back to Portsmouth. The first connection is that John Paul Jones, "father of the American Navy," lived in Portsmouth in 1781, while a local shipyard finished building his ship, "America." His successful campaign against the British in the ship "Ranger" was accomplished with a largely Portsmouth crew.

The first U.S. Navy shipyard was built in 1800 near that spot. In 1905, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard hosted the formal negotiations that ended the Russo-Japanese War with the Sept. 5 signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, for which Washington's cherry trees were given in gratitude.

President Theodore Roosevelt, a former assistant secretary of the Navy, selected Portsmouth to host the peace conference and the shipyard to provide formal security and protocol. That same summer, while monitoring the peace conference from the distance of the summer White House at Sagamore Hill (and after dispatching then-Secretary Taft on a friendship cruise to Japan), Roosevelt authorized an expedition to recover John Paul Jones' body from its unmarked grave in Paris and return it to the United States, where it was finally entombed in a grand catafalque at Annapolis.

As the city of Portsmouth began exploring its history and expanding its knowledge of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, it forged a sister city relationship with Nichinan, Japan — the home and burial site of Baron Jutaro Komura, the chief Japanese plenipotentiary in Portsmouth at the peace conference. In 1993, Nichinan made a gift of a dozen cherry trees that were planted around the tidal basin of South Mill Pond near City Hall.

According to the Portsmouth Herald, during an August 2003 visit to Portsmouth, Masanori Kitagawa, mayor of Nichinan City; Hiroshi Idogawa, chairman of the Nichinan City Council; Shizuka Tanaka, chairman of the Nichinan Chamber of Commerce and Industry and chairman of the Sister-City Friendship Association, and Yasuo Kuroiwa, deputy section chief of the General Affairs Division, took particular note of the flourishing cherry trees.

For the 100th anniversary of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, the Japan-America Society of New Hampshire created an extensive exhibit detailing a day-by-day account of the negotiations from Aug. 8 to Sept. 5 between the Russian and the Japanese diplomats. Since then, the exhibit has been displayed on loan to the Portsmouth Historical Society in its museum, the John Paul Jones House.

Stephanie Seacord is director of public affairs for the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Forum. Visit www.portsmouthpeace

treaty.org.

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